The bitcoin bug bites SecondMarket:

I have to admit I’m disappointed in this one. It’s no secret that I’m very skeptical about what’s likely to happen when small, risky investments start getting lots of publicity thanks to the ban on general solicitation being lifted. And I’m even more skeptical about funds which do nothing but invest in bitcoins. But at the same time I like quite a lot of the SecondMarket business model. They provide a valuable service to private companies, and they have every ability to carve out a nice little niche for themselves as an accreditation and investment platform — a one-stop shop which allows companies and funders both to avoid much of the onerous paperwork normally associated with private investments. The problem is that SecondMarket isn’t just a service for issuers and investors. It has also, of late, become a lead-generation engine — or, to put it another way, a mechanism fo...